Fall On Your Sword
by Era Yachi
Summary: To Neal, chess, pinot noir, and obscure quotes have lost all meaning.


_**Fall On Your Sword**_

* * *

The room was hot and cold. The smell of oil paints and dust combined, rich mahogany, turpentine and fresh air felt like a blanket to Neal, who thumbed the crumpled paper in his hand repeatedly. It was well worn now, almost like cloth, but the thick black ink and uneven scrawling on its surface was as loud and vibrant as ever. It spoke in volumes, even though Neal's apartment was stifled in silence.

_Dear Neal,_

_Okay, so I lied. Remember that time you told me to burn that alias that guy from Minnesota gave me? In case you haven't figured it out (yeah okay, highly doubtful), I didn't. Sorry. You're probably furious right now, so I'm sort of glad I'm not there to suffer the infliction that is your new-found self-righteous belief that I'm incapable of taking care of myself._

It went on for a few paragraphs, where the author regaled past events that were in his four-eyed field of perspective, examples of the many times Neal had conned him out of the 'perfect plan'. It didn't matter to Neal. There was nothing in those words that explained the events of yesterday; no, that part of the letter was still to come.

_ Obviously if you're reading this, my fail-safe 'failed', and I hope you'll appreciate the irony for me. Of course, if my other fail-safe also failed, you wouldn't be reading this, because you'd most likely be dead. On that note—PUT THE LETTER DOWN NOW, SUIT. THIS ISN'T FOR YOUR STICKY FED FINGERS._

A dry but hoarse laugh left Neal's mouth, which was hardly more than a gasp and a pained smile, as he read over that line twice. Only briefly did he stop to think what Peter might have felt, if he'd been the one to receive this letter, in the event the 'second fail-safe' hadn't worked out.

Neal had to grip his shaking hand with his other fist tightly and wait a full minute before he could continue reading.

_I need you to realize that I didn't do this for you—well okay, I did it for you, but I also did it for June and El. I guess in an indirect, purely unintentional way, the Suit may or may not benefit from my genius, but I want it to be known that everything is purely circumstantial. 'He who allows oppression shares the crime', Erasmus_.

_I hope you found the last bottle of pinot noir. If you didn't, then I never knew you and our entire friendship was a sham. Which now makes me wonder how you're going to survive the inevitable metamorphosis into a federal blankout now that I'm not around. Well, I'm pretty sure June will step up if the bureaucracy of wolves ever closes in for the kill._

_ And if you're really, really still mad at me after reading all this, then consider for a moment what you would have done if you'd been in my shoes, and I was the one Loughley was after. See? I just made you realize and accept the unveiled truth, which is simply this: you're a hypocrite. Checkmate, my friend._

_ Sincerely, _

_ The Mozz_

No post script. Not even an envelope. Just a whimsical piece of paper folded up between two empty wine bottles in the center of his living room floor. Neals' sleeves still had smudges of long dried blood, his eyes rimmed with red and his sweaty hair disheveled from a long night's silent breakdown. Even so he'd managed to stumble to the floor, pick up the note and climb up a chair, like a man who'd found a glass of water after his oasis turned to hot sand.

Three hours after midnight, the surface of Mozzie's note flickered in the light cast by a single lit candle. It struggled to stay alive in a clear ocean of melted wax. The wick was soon to expire. And still, Neal couldn't accept that this page, this single, solitary page, was all that remained of the boisterous, fanatical man who he still half-expected to burst into his apartment at any given time.

Because long before nightfall that previous day, the man who wanted Neal Caffrey's heart on a plate, Sean Loughley, entered the FBI's crosshairs. Only Loughley outsmarted everyone, three moves ahead of the feds and one step in front of Neal.

The only man he couldn't outsmart was Mozz.

Mozz, who took advantage of their _only advantage left_, Neal's anonymity of appearance, and confronted Loughley on his own.

_240 Clinton and Henry Street, the Busk Berono's Boxing Gym. After hours. Come alone._

Mozz, who secretly kept the forged IDs from their Minnesota sting that put his face on a paper trail labeled 'Neal Caffrey'. IDs that were never meant to be used again after that one, identity-swapping heist that nearly got them killed.

Mozz, whose last words were probably 'I'm Neal Caffrey', before a twenty-two mil round stopped his heart.

Because Neal wouldn't answer his phone when Mozzie called. Because of the fight they'd had about the Degas fence. Because Mozz couldn't warn him, and felt somehow personally responsible for stopping Loughley from carrying out his next move.

It worked. Loughley was arrested at the gym, the place where Mozz had lured him to take the heat off Neal. Neal, who had only escaped a bullet between his eyes thanks to a single phone call. The barrel of Loughley's henchman had been literally five feet away when the call came.

Neal, who'd watched his would-be assassin be duly informed that the 'real' Neal Caffrey was dead.

Neal, who was immensely relieved at first to be allowed to live. Confused, but expecting a lucky break or some major FBI miracle.

But then that dark horror soaked into his skin as Peter's voice on the other end of his cell became distorted, then tuned out completely, as the words 'Mozzie', 'killed' and 'Loughley' bit into him like a rabid dog.

Standing over a gurney, pressing his forehead against the cool, clammy brow of a departed friend. Saying goodbye. Knowing there's not enough wine in New York to drown something like this.

So Neal self-commiserated for hours in his miniature apartment, thinking about times spent with his miniature partner in crime, trying to rationalize away the thing wires of guilt around his heart. In front of him were two wine glasses, both filled to the brim with deep burgundy alcohol. As he turned the wooden bishop around in his fingers, the pressure that had been rising in his throat since the moment he'd listened to Peter gravely inform him of Mozzie's death...finally broke.

* * *

June comes running when she hears Neal's scream and the shattering of glass. In her night robe, curlers in her hair and no makeup on.

She holds onto him as though she had born and raised this con man herself, with the arms of a grieving mother who had just lost a son gripping him tightly.

This one she would never lose.


End file.
